


5 Times Varian Gets In Trouble for a Chemistry Accident + 1 Time He Doesn't

by InsanityIsClarity



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Child Neglect, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Manipulation, adoption fic, based on comic, modern!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22431247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanityIsClarity/pseuds/InsanityIsClarity
Summary: Based off of Wallywestfest'sModern Varian Adoption!AU comic: Lost and Found5 times Varian tries chemistry at a foster home, fails, and gets in trouble for it and 1 time Varian tries chemistry at a foster home, fails, and doesn't get in trouble for it.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Rapunzel & Varian, Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Varian, Rapunzel & Varian (Disney)
Comments: 57
Kudos: 374





	5 Times Varian Gets In Trouble for a Chemistry Accident + 1 Time He Doesn't

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lost and Found Comic](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/554275) by wallywestfest. 



> [@wallywestfest](https://tmblr.co/mGwv5nMiRRsi8QNT_6b4kLQ) gave me permission to write a fanfic based off of her [Modern Varian Adoption!AU comic: Lost and Found](https://varian-adoption-au.tumblr.com/post/189965988596/page-1-next-welcome-to-the-start-of-the-epic), so here goes! Inspired by page 7 and the nice long look Varian gives the chem set. Disclaimer: this isn’t canon; I have no idea where the comic is going, and I’m excited.

1 (is the atomic number of hydrogen)

The day Varian first gets the Junior Chemistry Set is a good day. He’s nine years old now, and spending his birthday with his new foster parents. If this weekend with them goes well, he might be allowed to stay longer, and could even get adopted! He’s been dreaming of getting adopted since forever, and these parents seem really nice! They take him out to the toy store for his birthday and let him pick out anything he wants.

What he wants turns out to be a chemistry set designed for 10-14 year-olds, and they ask him if that’s for sure what he wants (how does this nine year old know what chemistry is anyway?) but he assures them it is, so despite their skepticism they make good on their promise and buy it for him. He doesn’t notice the look they share.

At first it seems like it isn’t such a bad idea after all, when the three of them sit down at the kitchen table together to try out the first experiment in the included booklet. The first experiment is a baking soda reaction. They lay down sheets of newspaper on the table, complete the experiment as instructed, and read the explanation together as to what reactions have taken place.

Then, the adults smile at him and go upstairs alone, telling him to take his time and get used to the house. Left in the silence, Varian feels uncomfortable for the first time. This isn’t his house, he doesn’t know where anything is, and he can’t just ask. They were just here- if he wanted to ask, he should’ve when they were in the room. Now he’s stuck alone.

For lack of anything else to do, he opens up the experiment booklet again, flipping through the various experiments until one catches his eye: a flame color test. He reads the information, fascinated that there are colors of flame other than red and that chemistry can _make_ flames be a color other than red.

Surely his foster parents wouldn’t mind if he tried the experiment a little himself? The chem set has provided tongs, the various compounds for testing, and a lighter. It should be easy enough. He just has to hold and light the lighter with one hand and maneuver the tongs with the minerals with the other hand. It’ll be easy!

It is easy, at least until the compound starts slipping out of the tongs and he has to readjust his grip and ends up touching the part heated from the flame. Lightly burned but very surprised, he drops the tongs and lowers his other hand to catch his burnt one. Unfortunately this means that the lighter is low to the table, and the flame catches on the newspaper.

Before he knows enough to do anything to stop it, the newspaper is on fire, followed by the tablecloth, followed by the wooden table. At his panicked shout, the adults race back downstairs and one races outside, grabs the hose and brings it inside, and soon enough the fire is put out. Everyone is safe, but the table and tablecloth are irreversibly damaged. 

The foster parents don’t talk much to Varian the rest of the weekend, and after he apologizes, he doesn’t talk to them much either. He’s sent back to the foster home on Sunday, and he never sees the couple again. They don’t tell him why and he doesn’t ask.

When he’d set the table on fire, the chemistry set was on the floor, so he still has it, and is allowed to take it back to the home with him. Once he has unpacked, he opens up the booklet to read even further.

-

(A triple bond includes) 2 (pi bonds)

When Varian is 10 years old, he gets placed in a home that is... interesting. There are two kids his age there, identical twin girls, and although they get offended when he can’t tell them apart, they’re nice enough to him. Their names are Ally and Lauren and they look so much like their parents that it makes Varian feel almost grotesquely out of place, but in the beginning it is good.

A week in, _something_ happens- Varian doesn’t know what- and the mask slips. The parents are screaming at each other, the loudest sounds Varian’s ever heard, and he’s frozen stiff when Ally(?) grabs him by the arm and pulls him into the girls’ room. The sound of glass breaking echoes through the house, and while Varian flinches in fear, the girls just look resigned.

“Does-does this happen a lot?” he asks.

“Um, kind of,” Ally(?) responds, and Lauren(?) nods in agreement. “Things will be good for a few weeks, then some stupid thing will happen that will make one of them mad at the other or at us, and then they’ll yell in circles for a week, apologize, make up, and we’ll be good for a few weeks again."

The twin who hadn’t just spoken continues. “They don’t hurt us,” she assures. “Stuff gets thrown sometimes but never really _at_ anyone, so it’s okay. Just gotta lie low for a few days.”

Varian nods, still a bit shaken up, and the three sit in silence for a while, listening to the argument below. Later, he slips out the door and into the room they call his and falls asleep.

The fighting goes on for days, and Varian splits his time out of school playing board games with the twins in their room or experimenting with chemistry in the room he sleeps in. Two days into the children’s self-imposed solitude, the girls get curious as to what Varian has been up to, and sneak over to find out.

He enjoys the time spent with them, showing them his work and having an enraptured audience. Being in the fifth grade, none of them have seen too much of chemistry in school, so the chem set is an exciting adventure for them all.

Three more days pass in the same way, and even though he’s only lived in the house two weeks, he’s gotten close to his foster siblings. He can tell them apart now, and knows that Lauren used to try to play the peacemaker when people in the family fought but had since given up, knows that while Ally is bitterly used to all the fighting, she still harbors a deep fear of being yelled at.

They learn things about him, too: how he loves chemistry because it gives him the power of creation, how he’s starting to forget what his dad was like and hates not being able to remember, how he wants so badly to be adopted. (They learn that, as much as he likes them, he doesn’t particularly want to be adopted by their parents. He never tells them this, but they know and they understand.)

Five days later, even Ally and Lauren are on edge because, according to them, this is the longest their parents have ever fought. He decides he’ll show them one of the basic acidity tests from the chem set to take their minds off of things, and calls them over. They can just barely hear him over the shouting, but eventually get there.

He allows Ally to dip the litmus paper into the hydrochloric acid, and waits patiently while she tries to focus in on what she’s doing before she completes the task. 

Unfortunately, Ally isn’t the only one ill at ease from the screaming, because just as she’s dipping the paper a particularly loud yell shocks the group, causing Lauren to bump into her sister, who promptly knocks the acid onto her arm with a yell.

A lull in the fight means the two adults are racing upstairs to his room within the minute, and once the two see their daughter’s burnt arm and Varian’s chemistry set, they’re yelling once more. He looks to Ally and Lauren for backup, but they both seem to be scared silent, so he sits through the too-loud lecture quietly until they calm down.

Once they get the anger out of their systems, they finally _see_ him and his petrified face and seem to realize what they’ve done. They say, “We’re sorry,” and “We thought we could handle it but we can’t, we were wrong,” and “We’ll be better, we promise,” and take Ally by the good arm, leaving the room presumably for the hospital.

“I’m so sorry, Varian,” Lauren says, and then she leaves too.

Twenty minutes later, the foster home vehicle pulls into the driveway, and he packs his things and heads out. He’ll ask how Ally is doing quite a few times over the coming weeks, and will be told she’s okay, and will hope their parents keep their promise for the twins’ sake.

He was only there two and a half weeks, and he’s back to enjoying the (comparative) calm of the group home. 

He thinks he won’t ever see the girls again, but he will, years later, by some stroke of chance, and he’ll be able to say that he’s okay and they’ll be able to say that they’re okay and then they’ll part ways once more.

-

(Diatomic nitrogen’s bond order is) 3

Over a year later, Varian is placed in the smallest foster home he’s ever or will ever be placed in. It’s a tiny two bedroom apartment, and the only other person who lives there in an older man who’d always wanted to have kids but had never been in a romantic relationship.

The man is nice, even if extremely awkward, which he claims is because he’s lived alone for too long. He’s read Varian’s file, knows that he’s been kicked out of two homes for chemistry experiments gone wrong, and institutes a rule that the almost-12-year-old can only do chemistry with his supervision. It’s not the most unreasonable regulation, Varian supposes.

At first, Varian feels rather ill at ease, never having lived with someone this old before, nor with only one other person. But just as it always does, time passes routines are created, and nerves settle.

On weekdays he goes to school. He’s in the sixth grade now, and the math calculations in the chemistry booklet are starting to make more sense. After school, he walks a few blocks back to the apartment, and works on homework until the man- Jim- gets home from work. Then he and Jim will cook some kind of dinner together. Jim is a good cook, and his watchful eye makes sure that Varian’s (horrible, horrendous, disastrous) cooking skills don’t completely ruin the meal.

They eat at the small table that’s half covered in old paperwork and Varian, once prompted, will ramble on about anything and everything as long as Jim will listen, which is an unusually long amount of time. After dinner, they play some kind of card game together, watch an episode of a cartoon show about a magical princess that they both like, and go their separate ways for the evening.

Sunday afternoons quickly become Varian’s favorite time of the week because that is when the two of them clear off the table and try to do chemistry together. Try, because Jim, who is a nurse and quite excellent at biology, knows next to nothing about chemistry, which he hadn’t touched since his college days decades before, and Varian, who knows quite a bit about chemistry by now, is utterly awful at following safety procedures and getting experiments to go as planned.

It’s always an interesting experience, but usually not a _good_ interesting.

After the fifth time a small household object is irreparably burnt, blown up, or otherwise damaged, Jim takes the chem set, puts it in the back of the coat closet and simply says, “You can try again when you’re older.” Varian doesn’t protest, even if he very much wants to assure that he’s finally figured out the formula this time and he’s _certain_ it’ll work this time if he could have one more chance, please.

From then on, Sunday afternoons are spent reading chemistry textbooks together and doing absolutely no experiments, at least not until Varian has finished the various books Jim has bought him on lab safety procedure. 

He never does finish the books, because two months into his stay at the apartment, Jim is hit on his way home from work by a drunk driver, and Varian is sent back to the Old Corona foster home, but not before finding the chemistry set once more.

Varian is later told that Jim died during surgery at the hospital, and he cries, but vows it will be the last time he gets attached to a foster family.

-

(Carbon has) 4 (valence electrons)

After Jim, Varian doesn’t get chosen by another family for over two years. Even though he still thinks of Ally and Lauren and Jim, ater months upon months of watching other kids find loving parents while he’s been left behind, he’s long since given up on the promise he made himself not to get attached. If by some miracle, someone picks him over any of the adorable little kids in the orphanage, he won’t feel bad at all if he gets attached.

He does eventually get chosen by a middle aged couple that has no biological kids, but he does not get attached.

What he gets, is confused.

“We love you,” they say, as he moves in. “We’re glad you’re here.”

He’s doubtful that anyone could love someone else that easily or quickly, and he’s not sure how to respond. “Uh, thank you?” he tries.

“Don’t you love us back?” they ask. There’s something in their voice that makes him pause, makes him feel he has to tread carefully here.

“Of-of course I do?” he guesses. He has no idea what they want. They smile at him once more and leave him to settle in the large room they’ve set him up in.

Later that week, he shows up to dinner late from school, having stayed late to talk with his favorite science teacher, and they ask, “Do you not like us? If you liked us you’d be at dinner on time.” 

“I’m uh- I’m sorry,” he says, “I should’ve told you I was going to stay late.” They frown more, and he realizes that him not letting them know where he was at is not why they’re upset. They say nothing, and stare more, and he flounders. “I should’ve been on time?”

“You are forgiven, this time,” they acquiesce, and that’s that.

He learns to speak carefully, but it doesn’t always help much. Sometimes it seems that no matter what he says, there’s the chance they might get offended, and he wishes he could stop saying wrong things, but he can’t, and saying nothing at all also offends them, so he can’t do that either.

Other than the walking on eggshells though, it’s not the worst home ever. They care for him when he gets sick the second week in, and they cook good food for him, and they’re nice as can be as long as he doesn’t say anything wrong. And, he’s allowed to do his chemistry alone in his room. So he can’t complain, not really.

One day they ask him, “You like living here don’t you?”

And he says, “Of-of course I do.” They aren’t a huge fan of his occasional stutters, he can tell from their frown becomes ever so slightly more pronounced whenever he does, but he has yet to completely break the habit. They never comment on it.

“We’re glad,” they smile, “because we’re _so lucky_ to have you and you’re _so lucky_ to have us. Not many teenagers get adopted these days. Especially not with your _track record_.”

They don’t mention the many times he’s been reported for accidental damages, but he knows what they mean, and he thanks his lucky stars he hasn’t had an accident here yet. Still he winces at what they say, and tries to think of a response.

“Well, don’t you agree?” they ask, looking at him pointedly.

“Ummm... sure.” He’s not sure he does agree that he’s lucky, but they’re right about teens not getting adopted as much so maybe they are correct about this too. What does he know anyway?

They leave him be after that, and he goes back to “his” room as quickly as he can without it seeming like he’s trying to escape. He’s not sure he succeeds.

A week after that incident, they’re celebrating his one month anniversary with the meal he’s told them is his favorite (a little white lie to try to get on their good side for once didn’t hurt anyone, right?) when they finally get around to asking what he’s been doing with “that chem set” up in his room.

“Oh, just some- just some basic experiments, really. Would you like to see?” Maybe it was stupid of him to just invite their scrutiny like that, but it’s been so long since someone’s been even remotely interested in his work that he gets caught up in his excitement.

They agree, and follow him upstairs to his room and stand stiffly as he sets up his experiment. He ~~thinks~~ knows that he’s figured out a way to do mini fireworks in a glass bottle and there is no way this won’t wow them. Maybe they’ll finally be impressed by something he’s done!

Somewhere, his calculations went wrong, and the glass explodes, mercifully not a single piece hitting a person.

They stare at him with wide eyes, which narrow into slits as they grab his arm, take him to the out of the room so that they can clean the glass, then tell him to pack his things.

“Should’ve known better with the reports we read,” they say, and then he’s back in the group home yet again.

-

(Vanadium is in group) 5

A few months later, just after he turns 14, he gets fostered again. It is early summer, so he ends up spending all of his time in this new house, and it is _strange_.

And he says it is strange, but really he means it is quiet. Dead quiet. All the time. The only way to describe the couple he’s living with is quiet. They speak rarely, and quietly when they do. They move quietly, and eat quietly, and _live_ quietly. 

He’s expected to be quiet too, but he figures this is probably a blessing, as he thinks wouldn’t be able to say anything right anyway. And so he talks rarely, and quietly when he does. He moves quietly, and eats quietly, and he _lives_ quietly.

He gets used to it surprisingly quickly. His tendency to ramble on about various topics had mostly ended after the previous house he had been in, but now it’s completely disappeared. He has a lot of time to himself, with it being summer, and even if he goes a little crazy at being cooped up for hours and days on end without a real conversation, he doesn’t complain, so he can’t fault them for not noticing.

They don’t notice a lot, he notices. He dyes a blue streak in his hair with various chemistry ingredients they purchased for him to keep him busy, and they say nothing. He wonders if they aren’t noticing or if they just don’t care. He wonders if he cares anymore. 

It takes a while to work up his nerve for it again, but after going so long with them not acknowledging a thing he does, he dives headfirst into chemistry again. He misses meals and loses sleep working on projects, and they say nothing. His experiments get progressively more and more dangerous, but they never check on him up in his room, so how could they notice, and if they noticed, would they say anything? (No, they wouldn’t.)

He dives deeper into chemistry, and stops leaving his room. (They say nothing, they do not check on him, what did he expect?) It’s all going _great_ at first, really, he’s getting a lot of research done and that’s _wonderful_ and he doesn’t need anyone when he’s got his science.

Three days (with no sleep, no food, no leaving his room) of straight chemical experiments later, Varian’s mind is on the high of his life. His body, however, has other ideas, and he promptly passes out right onto his experiment. 

He lifts his head up minutes later to notice he has glass shards sticking out of his face. Instantly freaking out, he races downstairs, right to the couple, and they say nothing, just take him to the hospital. The hospital asks how it happens, and he says the truth- he passed out while doing chem- but they see the bags under his eyes and the shaking in his hands and tell the couple they will not be getting him back. They say nothing, and leave, quiet as ever.

The hospital patches him up, good as new somehow, and the next day the couple come back to drop off his stuff. He’d lived with them barely a week and a half.

-

+1 (is the charge of ammonium)

Rapunzel and Eugene seem really, _really_ nice and when they decide to foster him (and see where it goes, could it go anywhere _new_ this time? He doesn’t dare to hope) he on his best behavior for them.

This makes the move in process rather difficult however, when he sees the inside of their house and wants to gush forever about it. The easiest way to describe it would be _glorious, glorious, organized chaos._ The most accurate way to describe it would be:

There are paintings on the wall, but not canvases in frames like Varian’s always seen, no, the paintings are painted right onto the wall. There is no blank space left to be seen upon immediate entry. Taking up most of the living room is what appears to be a giant Rube Goldberg machine. Varian has no idea what it does, but he desperately wants to find out. The kitchen, for all the bright colors and knickknacks on shelves, is fairly clean, and the table and the light purple tablecloth both look like they’re handmade. Fairy lights are attached to the wall somehow, and when Varian looks closer he notices they’re arranged in ways that line up with the painted images behind them.

“Like it, kid?” Eugene asks, smiling, and Varian, still silent in awe, nods. 

“Wait till you see your room!” Rapunzel squeals, and races down the hall. Varian is suddenly reminded of how young Rapunzel and Eugene are compared to all of the other foster parents he’s had in the past; he’s pretty sure they told him they’re 28 and 34.

Eugene starts to walk after Rapunzel, beckoning Varian to follow with yet another smile, and the 14-year-old does so. He walks behind the couple into a room smaller than any other he’s lived in yet.

It couldn’t be more perfect. Maybe that’s just him noticing the desk full of beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks, and various other chemicals and chemistry supplies, scratch that it’s definitely him noticing the desk, but it’s the best thing he’s ever seen, ever been given.

He must be staring for too long, because Rapunzel starts to look at him a little apprehensively. “Do you like it?” she asks, her hands held together.

“Y-yes, of course!” he stammers, “Thank you so much!”

“Well, I noticed you looking at that chemistry set back at the home,” Rapunzel starts.

“And we figured, why not?” Eugene adds. “If you hadn’t noticed, we like indulging our hobbies in this home.” He laughs a little.

When Varian smiles, they both smile as well, and while he doesn’t feel completely at ease, he feels much more so than he did moments before, at ease enough that he loses control, just a little. “There’s-there’s so much I could do with this! I’ve been meaning to attempt to make mini fireworks, and ye-yeah that didn’t work so, ummm, great last time, but I’m certain that if I fixed the potassium nitrate concentration I could get it to, uh, umm, no-not explode this time!”

When he turns to see their faces again, their smiles are still present but he can see a little bit of worry in their eyes. “We’ve uh- we read your file kid,” Eugene says, “And we’d really like you to notice the goggles, apron, gloves, and safety manual sitting on the edge of that table there.” He points to the said items.

“And we’d really like if you wouldn’t attempt any possibly dangerous experiment without one of us around,” Rapunzel says. “Not that-not that we don’t trust you, we just really don’t want you getting hurt, okay? We’re always here to help.”

Varian looks again to all the supplies that must have cost _quite a lot_ and decides that their safety precautions are a condition he can more than live with. “Y-yeah, sure!” he agrees.

“So, what are we gonna work on now?” Rapunzel asks, clapping her hands together with an expectant grin.

“You-you meant right now?” he asks, because usually something like this takes planning, and he hasn’t even _unpacked yet_ and yeah he’s really excited to start, but why should they care about that?

“Uh, yeah right now,” Eugene answers, “When else?”

Rapunzel looks down at his suitcase. “Unless you’d rather unpack,” she hastily adds. “Or eat, or anything really. We can do whatever you want!”

He looks at the rest of the room. Light blue walls, no paintings (did she not care enough to paint this room, or- _or did she think he’d stick around long enough that he might want to paint it?_ ), a twin bed with a handmade periodic table bedspread, a box on the bed with various decorations he could presumably put wherever he wanted, if he wanted. It really is perfect.

He looks back to the desk. The chemicals beckon him, but he knows his first experiment here shouldn’t be one that’s blown up in the past. Something simpler, then. “Could we maybe try making elephant toothpaste?” he asks, trying not to get his hopes up too high, despite being told they can do anything he wants.

“Of course!” Rapunzel chirps.

“Definitely!” Eugene chimes.

“Awesome!” Varian reaches for the peroxide, but when his hand opens to grab it, he finds the goggles being placed there instead, and an apron appears around his neck. He blushes. “Sor-sorry,” he mutters, ties the apron around his waist, grabs and pulls on the gloves, and puts the goggles over his eyes. 

Rapunzel and Eugene also pull goggles out from somewhere and put them on, and step back to watch him work.

Stepping back was maybe the best decision for them, because Varian, in all his excitement, pours a little too much potassium iodide into a little too much peroxide, and has to jump back quickly to avoid being burnt.

The elephant toothpaste spills over onto the desk, onto the floor, and cools down, sticking to the hardwood. Varian winces, and prepares to apologize.

“That. Was. Awesome!” Rapunzel cheers.

“You-you think so?” Varian asks, looking up into their faces, into their eyes, searching for any kind of lie.

“Definitely,” Eugene assures, and Rapunzel smiles, and Varian finds no lie.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: I was adopted as a baby, but I have 0 experience with the foster care system, so if anything I wrote was super inaccurate or offensive, please let me know! I tried doing a thing where the more Varian cared for a family, the more he referred to them as individuals, ex. some couples only ever speak as "they" showing he doesn't see them as separate entities, while some people get names.
> 
> I suck so much at chem. I took a year in high school and a semester in college, and I hated it so much. That being said I do know a few things- don’t be like Varian: use a Bunsen burner, not a lighter lmao. He only uses a lighter because no way was a Bunsen burner going to fit in that box (I think). Also, store chemicals properly please. Not mentioned in the story, but Eugene and Raps did give him a proper storage place, they didn’t just leave stuff on the desk for all the time.
> 
> Google searches used in the writing of this: “how to make a baking soda volcano” “what would baking soda explode with” “preteen chem experiment gone wrong” “should a 10 year old have hydrochloric acid” “Erlynn-Meyer flask” “what periodic table family has 6 elements” “RaEuV compound” “what are fireworks made of” “cool chem experiments” “is elephant toothpaste dangerous”


End file.
